International football rolls into town for the next week, destination Brazil and the 2014 World Cup. It seems a long way off and I suspect, or rather hope, that any Liverpool player competing for this over the next five days or so will have more immediate thoughts concerning matters closer to home.

I guess for Brendon Rogers, and indeed everyone concerned with Liverpool, the break is welcome. By the way I’ve been wondering what to call him, it’s a bind typing out his name in full all the time. I’ve thought of all sorts of alternatives but in the end settled on plain old BR! Original I know!

Anyway I was saying the break is probably welcome, another bad result and who knows what criticism they would be faced with. At least BR (that’s better) will have time to sit back, take stock and plan for Sunderland, our next league game. Sadly there is little that can be done on the training pitch to iron out the sorry series of frustrating mistakes we’ve made so far. Key players will be missing playing for their countries, if we carry on like this perhaps, in future, they won’t be!

Back at the ranch the striker gate options appear to be petering out. As does Andy Carroll’s fitness, how ironic that he is out for six weeks. Any chances to secure Michael Owen’s services for the second time were lost as he signed for Stoke. This blog has been conducting a long running campaign for us to resign him. Owen, on his day and when he is fit, is still one of the most clinical finishers which sadly, for all Suarez’s other work, is what we currently lack. Perhaps anyone thinking that this was serious option was being optimistic given the comments BR made last week about older players.

“Young players will run through a barbed wire fence for you. Older players will look for the hole in the fence or just turn back and not even go through it.”

This can be taken a number of ways, for example, younger players are gung ho and stupid and older players are cleverer and more pragmatic! I don’t think you can accuse Jamie Carragher or Steven Gerrard of looking at a fence and then turning their backs on it however, even though it’s a sweeping generalisation, I sort of get BR’s point. And Michael Owen? “NO” I can almost feel you saying but it is academic now. The chance to make a quick fix, or take a short term opportunity, has been lost.

Elsewhere Fulham seem intent on “telling teacher” about our behaviour over the Clint Dempsey affair. Perhaps we might have expected this to be forgotten seeing as Dempsey didn’t end up with us however, Fulham, with a mean spiritedness that belies the cuddly, homely image of the club, have decided to press ahead. Quite what they hope to achieve from this now that Dempsey is gone is beyond me. Perhaps it is some kind of perverse satisfaction from seeing us seeing us punished, I hope they get their kicks even though no one else will be bothered, even us? To complain about BR mentioning our interest in him strikes me as someone strange bearing in mind it was heavily reported in all the papers. Did they think this would turn the player’s head, poor, young, impressionably Clint unable to think for himself and all that!

The second complaint concerns the FSG related US website and it’s premature announcement that Dempsey had joined us. It was a mistake which was taken down as soon as it was spotted. Apparently the post was uploaded at 5-44am UK time and taken down five hours later. No doubt this had a dramatic effect across the English footballing world as the first thing anyone worth their salt would do when they wake up is to rush to their PC and log into some obscure American website to read about who Liverpool have signed!

By the letter of the law perhaps Fulham have a point but is it really worth pursuing? A tad overly sensitive on their part me thinks particularly as they should have been resigned to Dempsey leaving? Still what do you expect from a club that has a statue of Michael Jackson outside their ground! As there is already one of The Beatles in Liverpool perhaps we should, like Fulham, go “off piste” erect one to A Flock of Seagulls!